UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 10 Nov 2008

UrukNet - Daily Information from Occupied Iraq - newsletter 10 Nov 2008
We are Sick of the American-Israeli Interference
Kawther Salam, Palestine Think Tank
I am writing this article after I escaped from the criminal action of Israelis on November 1, 2008, who came to Vienna to watch and to harass me. I wonder if the mission of these criminals to terrorize me in exile was coordinated between the Israelis and the Palestinian "security" team, just like what is happening in Palestine now. We Palestinians are sick and tired of the Palestinian Authority, which is implementing the Israeli-American so-called "security plan" instead of the Israeli military, with a mission of terrorizing, chasing, arresting people, destroying the houses of civilians and boasting about their vile crimes in the streets. Everybody knows that these forces are useless cowards during the Israeli raids on Palestinian cities under their authorities. The Palestinian civil society is sick of the so-called "Hamas authority", the radical Palestinian movement which distorts the face of Islam, and which has turned the holy mission of the Palestinian struggle into a struggle for their own pockets and unknown foreign agendas. We, all the Palestinians, are sick of both of you and of your continuous fights. The daily news about you bring us headache and causes us deaf- and blindness...

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Obamania: a collective, frightening madness
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's Blog
...The imperial cult in ancient Rome was essentially a propaganda tool focused on leaders, a cult of personality. After the emperor's death, the apotheosis of the emperor would strengthen this cult. Fast-forward two thousands years and we are assisting to the apotheosis of Barack Obama, even before he sits on the imperial throne; miracles of our Global Village's propaganda (...) Barack Obama is young, handsome, charming and above all, he's cool; the perfect qualities for the modern cult of personality. We shall never forget however, empires don't elect presidents they select emperors. Corporate America - with its money and influence - has selected Barack Obama as next emperor of the US global empire. The Obama Campaign got more than $ 660 millions and money is generally accepted as a medium of exchange..

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Not So Fast: Aides Warn Obama’s Quick Closure of Gitmo Will Be Anything But
Jason Ditz
Though newspapers have been reporting all day that President-elect Barack Obama intends to move swiftly to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as soon as he takes office, sending detainees to face criminal trials in the US, his aides are suggesting that the incoming administration isn’t close to any such decision...

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Iraq's Planning Minister Wants Mass Privatization
'All financial sectors ... should be 100 percent private'
AFP
Iraq's planning minister has ambitious plans to trim the fat from the government, reducing its workforce by 75 percent in 10 years and rebalancing a fiscal budget almost entirely reliant on oil exports. "I don't want to give an exact figure, but I think in a period of 10 years we can give up at least 75 percent of these people," Ali Baban told AFP in an interview at his office in central Baghdad. "The number of people who are working as civil servants increased in the last six years and this of course has an impact on the budget," he said...


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Iraq spokesman says US security offer not enough
Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press
Iraq's government spokesman said Monday the proposed U.S. changes to a draft security agreement were "not enough" and asked Washington to offer new amendments if it wants the pact to win parliamentary approval. The comments by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh were the first by the Iraqis since the U.S. submitted a response last week to an Iraqi request for changes in the draft agreement, which would keep U.S. troops here until 2012 and give Iraq a greater role in the management of the U.S. mission. Al-Dabbagh said his remarks constituted the government response, but it had not been officially conveyed to the Americans...

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I DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO OBAMA’S PROMISES UNLESS….
Ibrahim Ebeid, Al-Moharer.net
When Iraq was under the Hashemite family rule the country was close to the West, especially with Britain, until the 1958 Revolution took place when Iraq established relation with the Soviet Union. But as soon as the Ba’ath took power in 1963, the relation with the West worsened because Iraq took a more independent path, economically and politically, and in 1972 the Iraq Friendship and Cooperation treaty with the Soviet Union was signed. Since then the West, and especially the United States, were furious and started creating problems and conspiring against Iraq. The preparation for war against Ba'athist Iraq was in the making. In 1978, Carter placed Iraq on a list of states that supported terrorism. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister, and her friend President Reagan were fabricating the lies that Iraq was building the largest cannon in the world, capable of shelling Tehran and Tel Aviv. Later on the myth of the super gun took a new form, a new lie, which told that the fabled weapon was designed to fire nuclear, chemical and biological shells at US military targets in the Gulf, Middle East, Red Sea and Mediterranean, as well as targeting Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey and Israel....All US Presidents since Carter were viciously hostile towards Iraq and Palestine. Unfortunately, early indications show that President-elect Barack Obama is following the same pattern as his predecessors....

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Democracy and Its Death Squad
Obama's Man in Afghanistan
PETER LEE
To civilian liberals of a hawkish bent, General Petraeus projects the reassuring image of the thinking person’s general. It’s kind of hard to wrap one’s head around the idea that operating death squads might be an integral and perhaps the vital component of the vaunted Petraeus doctrine of counterinsurgency. Or that death squads will probably continue to play a central role in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan under an Obama administration...

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El Khoudary: Gaza Strip in Darkness again!
The Popular Committee Against the Siege
With the Nahl Oz fuel transfer point running at only 40% of its regular capacity for almost a week, Chairman of Popular Committee against Siege, Jamal El Khoudary, warned that power outages could follow. When the sun set in Gaza on Sunday the Strip was plunged into darkness and no electric lights illuminated Gazan cityscapes. The sounds of small generators were heard around the city so main roads and shops could continue to function...

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Obama Foreign Policy May Not Require a Clean Break
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
While much of the world and many of his U.S. supporters are expecting a sharp break with his predecessor's foreign policy after President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20, they may be surprised by the degree of continuity between the two administrations. That continuity -- which would be made more concrete if, as expected, Pentagon chief Robert Gates is asked to remain at his post -- has less to do with Obama's hesitation in following through on his more sweeping campaign promises than with the fact that President George W. Bush, has quietly -- if grudgingly -- moved key U.S. policies in directions that are largely compatible with Obama's own intentions....

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US-led forces kill 14 Afghans, official says they were guards
AFP
Fourteen Afghan security guards were killed in a clash with US-led troops, a provincial governor said Monday, but the military said they were suspected militants who fired first. Three destroyed vehicles remaining at the scene after the fighting in the eastern province of Khost late Sunday were scorched and pocked with bullet holes, an AFP reporter said. Khost governor Arsala Jamal said the men were security guards for a road construction company, rejecting suggestions from the US-led coalition that the men were anti-government militants...

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Obama's Promise: Change You Can Wait For!
Winter Patriot
...And Obama has made it crystal clear -- to all 17 of us who were listening -- that his main disagreement with the Bush administration is over Iraq, where we're losing and where we're wasting forces that could be more valuable in Afghanistan. He's a Prince, all right! A Prince of Peace! Peace You Can Wait For! How long must you wait? How much more can you take?...

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Rats shit for Iraqi refugees in Syria, Maliki’s confrontation with the Kurds started again
Roads to Iraq
Reported on Syrian newspaper Al-Watan saying that the Syrian customs authority rejected a shipment came from "World Relief" as an aid for Iraqi refugees in Syria is contaminated with rat’s feces. Laboratory analysis shoes the presence of the following materials in the rice:1- The presence of dead insects. 2- The presence of mice and rat’s feces. 3- The presence of rotting and decomposed rice in some bags...

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SAME SHIT DIFFERENT CENTURIES (Part Four)
Malcom Lagauche
...Millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes. Much of Iraqi farmland was plundered and destroyed by U.S. military operations. And, today Iraqi farmers can not use their own seeds to plant crops. The U.S. administration took a page out of antiquity and applied the same tactics that Metacomet described 328 years prior. This is the fourth of five parts of "Eulogy on King Philip." Metacomet and his Wampanoag tribe declared full-out war on the European intruders. In this section we see where the Natives dominated the early battles, not losing one. In my opinion, no finer piece has been written by anyone in describing the horrors of the imperialistic actions of a government. Apes’ words were uttered almost two centuries ago, yet they are precise today...



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No reprieve from settler violence in sight
Paul Adrian Raymond writing from Hebron, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine
I was part of a group of journalists and peace activists recently attacked by stone-throwing Israeli youths in an olive grove near the West Bank city of Hebron. Fortunately, I was not hit. Hazem Bader, a Palestinian photographer working for Agence France-Presse, was not so lucky and ended up needing eight stitches on his scalp and a night in hospital. The immediate trigger for the incident was the Israeli army's demolition of an unlicensed structure in the settlement of Khirsina last Thursday evening. The residents of Khirsina, a satellite of the notorious Kiryat Arba settlement in the centre of Hebron, responded by launching a night-time attack on nearby Palestinian houses, throwing hundreds of rocks, smashing windows and damaging water pipes...

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Israeli soldier beats Palestinian laborers with rock; three in hospital with multiple fractures
Ma'an news
Three workers from the southern Nablus governorate were beaten with stones by Israeli soldiers on Monday. The men were taken to hospital where medical staff confirmed that several bones had been snapped. When speaking of the incident Palestinian sources recalled the Israeli policy of the first Intifadah. During the late 1980s Israeli soldiers were outfitted with truncheons and encouraged to break the bones of Palestinians participating in protests...


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Obama Mania
Stephen Lendman
On November 4, the world exhaled. The age of George Bush ended, and a new one under Barak Obama began. With high hopes he'll reverse the toxic legacy of the past eight years. Adopt socially progressive policies. End foreign wars. Govern the nation responsibly, democratically for all its people. Show his supporters that their faith in him was justified. "Let us congratulate ourselves on being alive at such a promising moment," wrote The Nation magazine's William Greider. His victory is "a monumental rebuke to tragic history -- the ultimate defeat of 'while supremacy.' Barak Obama has already changed this nation profoundly. Like King before him, the man is a great and brave teacher. (He) redefined the country for us."...The Nation shamelessly endorsed Obama with over-hyped expectations for him. They're unfounded, and based on early indications, hold the cheers. Obama's transition team is the first sign of the type people he'll choose for cabinet and other top posts. Insiders all, including former Clinton administration figures. The usual cast of characters in Democrat or Republican administrations...

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Israeli policeman sentenced to one year for killing Palestinian in cold blood
Palestinian Information Center
The Israeli Central Court in Tel Aviv decided on Sunday that the Israeli border guard police officer, Tomer Avraha, who killed a Palestinian worker in Jaffa in cold blood, should only be imprisoned for one year, press reports in the 1948 occupied lands reported. In October 2006, the officer shot and killed a Palestinian worker identified as Eyad Abu Raeyya, from Tarqoumia village, near the southern West Bank city of Al-Khalil. The assault took place as Abu Raeyya was working in Jaffa. In January 2008, the officer was convicted of "involuntary man slaughter"...

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Our inept justice system
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Everything seems to be collapsing in the nominally-autonomous enclave, known as the Palestinian Authority these days. The executive authority, which really has no authority or sovereignty of its own, has become too authoritarian and tyrannical and, of course, too corrupt. The legislative authority is paralyzed due to the mass incarceration by the Nazi-like Israeli occupation regime of dozens of lawmakers for their refusal to recognize the "legitimacy" of Zionism and the Israeli apartheid state...

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Dozens die in Iraq blasts
AlJazeera.net
At least 28 people have been killed and scores wounded in twin bombings in a market in Iraq's capital, Baghdad, security officials have said. Defence and interior ministry officials said that a car bomb went off in Adhamiyah on Monday. A suicide bomber then blew himself up among the crowd that had gathered around the blast scene...

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Palestine's greatest asset: its people
Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada
This week, various Palestinian factions were supposed to engage in a long-awaited national dialogue in Cairo, Egypt. Last October, after talks with most of the political movements, including Fatah and Hamas, Egypt proposed a plan to end the internal strife, calling for the establishment of a national unity government, the reform of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces and the preparation for elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas had apparently informed Egyptian officials that it will not participate. The party had been considering boycotting due to reservations towards the draft plan, differences over the extension over PA President Mahmoud Abbas' presidential term and an ongoing campaign against Hamas members by Abbas' forces in the West Bank...

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Gazans plunged into darkness
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera
Thousands of Gazans have been left without electricity following Israel's suspension of fuel shipments to the Hamas-controlled territory's only power plant. The power station was shut down on Monday evening after Israel refused to restart deliveries, despite warnings that fuel supplies were almost exhausted. Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Gaza City, said there was an almost complete blackout across the territory, with ordinary Gazans likely to exhaust personal supplies of fuel very quickly...


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